


Child's Play

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: smallfandomflsh, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 21:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1580798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows the kitchen table is there somewhere, because he bought the damn thing.  But it's currently buried under strips of newspaper, in the centre of which is what appears to be a giant white turd.  And apparently the bag of flour also exploded.  He'd blame terrorists if it wasn't for Matt's guilty expression.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Child's Play

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's smallfandomflsh community, for the prompt "volcano"
> 
> * * *

John spends the entire drive home stewing over the damn discussion with Lopez. Though _discussion_ might not be the optimum word with the way voices were raised and hands were clenched into fists. He bangs his fist now on the steering wheel. Sanchez and Anderson are good men, and there's no way he's losing them to goddamn _budget cuts_. 

By the time he pulls up in front of the house all he wants is a beer and a blowjob. Possibly not in that order. Then he'll be able to sit down and formulate a plan of attack to get Lopez and the damn number crunchers off his fucking back.

John shuts the door quietly behind him, toes off his dress shoes and tosses his keys on the sideboard. He's halfway up the hall before he hears the voices from the kitchen, and his grumpy mood gets even grumpier. If it's that damn Simon again, trying to fill Matt's head with thoughts of vegan this and organic that, he's tossing the punk out on his ass and he doesn't give a shit if he's the president of Matt's guild. Whatever the fuck _that_ means.

What he finds in the kitchen is far worse than a pseudo-hippie with a penchant for ponchos and conch jewelry. 

"Jeeeeezus," he mutters.

Matt's head whips up. John usually only sees that wide-eyed startled expression on Matt's face in the bedroom these days, usually when he suggests something that Matt's internally deemed out of his wheelhouse. He should know by now that John only takes that as a challenge, but it's nice that he can still surprise the kid. Usually that look morphs into a wicked grin and then he's late for work the next day. Today Matt just blinks rapidly and clears his throat. 

"Whoa, okay, hi. Holy shi… schnitzel," Matt says with an awkward glance at Jacob. "You're home early."

"Surprise," John says dryly.

He knows the kitchen table is there somewhere, because he bought the damn thing. But it's currently buried under strips of newspaper, in the centre of which is what appears to be a giant white turd. And apparently the bag of flour also exploded. He'd blame terrorists if it wasn't for Matt's guilty expression.

He feels a headache coming on. 

"Hi, Pop!"

John smiles wanly at his son, rakes a hand over the stubble on his chin. Okay, so the blowjob is clearly out, but beer is still on the table. That is, if he can navigate his way to the fridge. "Thought Jacob had daycare today?"

"Cancelled," Matt says. "Graham has chicken pox."

John cocks his head. "Which one is Graham, the one with the fish eye or the one who looks like he stuck his finger in the electric socket?"

"John," Matt says warningly. 

John shrugs. That one kid does look like he came out on the bad side of 200 volts, and nobody's going to tell him different.

He sneaks a peek down at Jacob, but their son is obliviously covering both his forearms with white glue. John's sure he gets these tendencies from Matt's side of the genetic pool. No way they wouldn't have spotted that kind of shit on the egg donor profile.

He looks up when Matt sighs, catches him shaking the hair out of his eyes. Normally he'd brush it back with his hand, but considering the state of him that's impossible at the moment. Matt's also got glue almost up to his elbows, which basically proves John's point. "Graham is Anita and Dave's son."

"Of course," John says. He wouldn't be able to pick Anita and Dave out of a goddamn lineup. And he still doesn't have a beer.

"We're making a volcano!" Jacob announces.

"I see that," John murmurs. He takes a tentative step into the kitchen, eyes glued to the fridge door with its latest display of crayoned drawings held up by Matt's collection of kitschy souvenir magnets, only to grimace when his foot squishes onto something wet and cold and decidedly not his ceramic tile. He leans down to carefully peel the strip of damp and gluey newspaper from the bottom of his foot. 

"Paper mache," Matt says. He waves a hand to indicate the catastrophe of the kitchen. "It gets a little messy." 

This time he forgets and does swipe a hand through his hair, leaving behind a large clump of white glue and giving himself a partial Mohawk in the process. John opens his mouth to tell him, closes it again with the words unsaid. Considering how precious Matt is about his goddamn hair he doesn't even want to be in the house when Matt discovers it; it would be best if he could be out of state. If he left now he could be in Jersey in time for dinner.

"You wanna help, Pop?"

"Nah. You and your dad got it covered, kiddo," John says.

"Okay," Jacob says happily. 

John steels himself, takes a breath. By the time he makes it the half dozen steps to the fridge he's stepped in a half-congealed pool of glue and nearly killed himself on the lego buried beneath the mound of cut-up newspaper in front of the sink. He twists the top off the beer before he even closes the fridge door. A cold Bud has never tasted so good.

He's halfway back across the room when Matt reaches out a hand to grip his arm, stops himself just before the sticky mess touches his shirt. "I'll clean it up when we're done," Matt says solemnly. "You'll never know we were here."

"Sure, kid," John says. He leans in to brush his lips against Matt's, runs a hand through Jacob's matching dark hair before disappearing into the living room. 

He settles down into the chair, rests the beer against the arm and tries not to think about the total destruction of his kitchen. The one room in the house that is necessarily required to be spotless. He's going to have to scrub it down with Lysol and bleach before he even attempts to cook in there again.

He realizes that he might be as fanatical about cleanliness in his kitchen as Matt is about his hair. 

He tries not to think about his lost blowjob, too – the feel of Matt's tongue pressing on the underside of his shaft, the enthusiastic noise he makes in the back of his throat, the way he keens when John fists a hand in all that goddamn hair – and squirms uncomfortably in the chair. 

The murmur of voices still drifts from the other room, Matt's animated patter and Jacob's excited responses. He remembers Holly telling him similar stories of cut-and-paste and finger painting with Lucy and Jack. That was back in the day when he was lucky to make it home before Carson, when he was focusing every goddamn minute on closing cases and working hard toward his next promotion. He didn't have the luxury of cutting out at one o'clock on a Tuesday like he does these days. 

His gaze roves around the room, taking in the overstuffed sofa, the flat screen, the neat pile of brightly coloured toys in Jacob's toy chest. He mentally compares his life now to the one before – the shitty walkup with Holly's grandmother's smelly sofa and the noise of the McDonoughs fighting through the thin walls, the TV that he had to slap with the palm of his hand in order to watch a fuzzy version of the Knicks. Holly's growing dissatisfaction vs Matt's seemingly endless contentment. 

He knows he was lucky to get a second chance with Matt. He fixed the mistakes he made with Holly, made a good life. 

John winces at a crash from the kitchen, takes another swallow of his beer. He remembers long hours in the smelly bullpen at 57 Division, coming home to Holly's sleepy recital of blanket forts and playing dress-up. 

He didn't get to leave work in the middle of the afternoon back then. And now that he can… he's spending his time brooding in an empty room while the two guys he loves most in the world are giggling together less than twenty feet away.

Lopez was right. Sometimes he IS an idiot. 

John gets up, sets the beer bottle on the mantle away from curious hands. Then he rolls up his sleeves, all the while reminding himself that children's glue is non-toxic, that they're not doing anything that a little elbow-grease and soap and water won't fix. 

Then he shakes his head. Fuck that, he's calling that maid service in the morning. Tonight, they're ordering pizza. And later, once Jacob is tucked away in bed – maybe after a pillow fight and a bedtime story from his Pop – he'll get Matt to help him figure out how to save Anderson and Sanchez's jobs. What's the point of having a genius in the family if he doesn't put that supersmart brain to work for a good cause? And _then_ he'll help Matthew clean himself off in the shower. He's got a few ideas on how he can put that amazed expression onto Matt's face again. 

He's smiling when he walks back into the kitchen, and the grin doesn't even falter when he slides on a strip of glued paper and almost takes a header into the stove. He meets the eyes of his boys – one questioning and curious, the other simply shining with unconditional love. 

"Still got room for one more?"


End file.
